Take one piece of aluminium and one piece
of stainless steel and hold it in ur hand -
they must be the same size, you can feel
the weight different: aluminium is much
lighter, while stainless is much heavier.

It may be a pain in the posterior to heat treat, with the steel at
480C-800C for 4 hours waiting for a precipitate to form, but methinks
it's becoming more common, available, and possibly affordable:
http://www.outokumpu.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/Outokumpu-martensitic-grade-630-data-sheet.pdf
17-4 PH stainless (also known as UNS S17400 or SAE T-630) seems to be
available in various flavors:
http://www.matweb.com/search/quicktext.aspx?SearchText=UNS+S17400%20stainless
http://www.matweb.com/search/QuickText.aspx?SearchText=17-4%20stainless
for a multitude of mundane applications:
https://www.tubehollows.com/alloys/stainless-steels/17-4
"...alloy 17-4 PH is a superb choice for structural components
of airplanes, biomedical hand tools, food processing equipment,
pulp and paper mill processing and nuclear waste processing
and storage."
The tubing is supplied as "solution treated" at moderate hardness,
which can be machined and possibly hydroformed into components. Once
that's done, a simple low temperature heat treatment (age hardening)
brings it up to full strength.

There's also 17-7 PH which seems to more appropriate for tubing:
https://www.tubehollows.com/alloys/stainless-steels/17-7

No clue on the cost of such a 17-4 PH frame or handlebar:
http://www.kvastainless.com/inox-bicycles.html

Are you sure those terms weren't in a breakfast cereal advertisement?
Remind me to steal those terms for my personal abuse.

A better question would be crisper or snappier than what? When
comparing the quality of a ride, it's considered good form to disclose
with what one is comparing the ride. Also, how much crisper or
snappier? A tiny, average, or jumbo size difference?
Is that better than "rigid, yet compliant"?

Nope. They're all "puffery"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery
which is the use of advertising comparisons and superlatives that no
sane person would accept at face value. As a minimum, if one cannot
attach a numerical measurement to the term, it's puffery. At least
rigidity (stiffness) can be measured as force divided by displacement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiffness

Frank Krygowski wrote:
All correct. We should add, magnetic vs.
non-magnetic is not really a binary
situation. There are materials that are
weakly magnetic, others that are strongly
magnetic, etc.

Right, I noticed that on my little stroll with
the magnet stick. But of course I couldn't
determine if this was a property of the base
material and/or some protective coating.
I suppose paint is to thin to interfere...
There was also a coating of frost which again,
shouldn't influence

BTW I've heard that if you paint the ocean on
a globe, it is impossible to apply a layer of
paint so thin as to be representative of the
ocean's "depth"...
I'm still wondering why the handlebar
material is so important to you. Is it just
a curiosity thing? (Curiosity is generally
good, of course.)

It all started with a guy saying his bar broke
but after that it is simply how the brain
works, you do something you start to think
about it, then you think about that, which
leads to the next thing, and so on.

Please note the "Very roughly" prefix, which acts as repudiation of
responsibility and disclaimer should I have screwed up the math. In
this case, I totally ignored any material or labor costs incurred
beyond the base materials. I also lacked a usable price comparison
between finished frames in steel and high strength stainless steel.

I don't think you'll find a direct comparison of identical frames except if you go to a custom builder like Uwe Marchall, who the last time I looked would give you a choice on many of his designs in Noblex stainless and several other steels. I remembering thinking that in his price list back then you could see how much more labour is involved in building a stainless frame, because that was basically eight- or nine-tenths of what you were paying for. At the bottom of this page you'll find a link to his price list: http://www.marschall-framework.de/produkte/
Observably bikes in bicycle-type butted tubes of stainless steel
don't cost ten or however many times as much as a bike in other
alloys of steel made to the same pattern by the same maker.

True. Please change "would be about 1/10th the price of stainless" to
"would be about 1/10th the materials cost of stainless".
I went into this when I was trying to get my smalltube frame
design built, when I discovered that stainless could in fact be
a cheap option compared to some aeronautics-grade mild steels.

Hmmm... sounds like a good idea. You could then advertise the small
diameter tubing as "low aerodynamic drag".

Incidentally, I've recently taken up knife sharpening, which led me to
knife making. That has forced me to do some reading on metallurgy,
heat treating, machining practices, etc. At this point, it's all a
big muddle to me, but I'm slowing beginning to sort things out. Oddly,
much has changed in the last half century.

This is interesting. For Christmas my family gave me gear and tools and consumptibleps to set up as an intaglio and block printmaker: a geared flatbed press, woodblock and lino cutters from Pheil in Switzerland, and drypoint and mezzotint tools from various Spanish firms (Artools, Arteina, Reig) I really don't know why the best tools come from Spain) the E C Lyons in the States -- also rollers, paints, barens etc, several boxes full that I'm sorting into smaller sets by function, but the important thing here is the tools, some tempered, hardened, special alloys, etc, because may of the tools must cut other metals, the roulettes for instance (they're knurled wheels on a handle to quickly draw parallel lines or hatching on copper, zinc or plastic plates). The tools also include a set of traditional woodblock cutters from Japan, made by the famous Yoshiharu cutlery firm (probably more of a large boutique workshop than any Western idea of a huge factory) in a blend of soft and hard steels hammered together, the tough steel part taking and holding the bevel; Pheil also claims special alloys and house secrets in the processing.

So, I'm interested. When you conclude your survey, write a little something to place here, or better still on my blog, or at least give me a link to the best source of information. Your reward will be in another place (as a famous editor once said to me when I asked for more money -- and his secretary from the next room called out, "That's a very doubtful proposition.")
(1) There was a third maker of stainless tube sets for bicycles
just starting up about ten, twelve years ago when I was taking
an interest. I don't know whether they ever made much of a mark.

Ummm... Columbus XCr perhaps?
http://www.columbustubi.com/eng/3_3.htm

Not Columbus; I would have remembered as my Utopia Kranich is made of custom Columbus steel tubes and lugs. The firm I'm referring to was brandnew and intended entering the bicycle market with their first and only product, stainless steel tubes. I thought at the time it was a business school recipe for a case study in self-inflicted failure.
--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558